Good day fellow fitness fiends! I have a story to tell you, and this time it actually relates to staying fit and healthy in our busy busy world. For those of you who don't know my back story - I am a father of three young children, my wife and I work full time and my work often times requires me 6-7 days per week at various hours. For me to make a schedule and stick with it can be the challenge of all challenges. If you are half as busy as I am, you barely have time to read this article, so I will be quick and to-the-point.
The Dilemma.
My job has me at different sports venues nearly every weekend. Ice rinks, basketball courts, college gymnasiums and the like. As a matter of habit, I always have my "feed bag" with me to avoid consuming the venue food, and we all know how wonderful that stuff is. Anyone living a healthy lifestyle long enough has gotten into this habit. That being accomplished, I still have not yet mastered the art of fitting in a decent workout during these weekends. Sometimes the preparation for these jobs forces me to miss a possible Thursday or Friday workout too. These are usually accompanied by a long Sunday evening drive so Monday's workout is next to physically impossible. So usually I am freaking out imagining that I will wake up on Tuesday and somehow weigh 215lbs again! Fine, we have established that I am not right in the head, not news to me! But how do I get a week's worth of working out in just two days with adequate rest periods? Actually I can't, pure and simple. I risk injuring myself if I just power through the two days lifting on both days. Bad Idea!
My Solution.
Most people can find a way to accomplish this simple routine. It doesn't take much time and only draws a minimal amount of attention to you. But since you've gotten serious about your health, you stopped caring what people think anyway, right? This solution is specific to my own situation, but there are ways for it to work almost anywhere with nearly anyone.
Three strength exercises that go back to the basics, but are very effective: Push-ups, pull-ups and chin-ups. I managed to get in under the bleachers at the arena I was working at this past weekend. I did 5 sets of pull ups, 5 sets of chin-ups and three sets of push ups. I combined the push ups with a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) formula that got my blood pumping and really felt great. It was a good enough workout that I was sore the next morning. If you cannot find anything to pull up from, the push ups can be just enough. You could even find a table and do some inverted rows underneath it, but that may be a bit risky. You don't even need a really tall area, cross your legs and bend at the knees. You could do pull-ups from a bar that when standing is only waist high. Just remember good form and don't cheat. For the pulls and chins, do 3-5 per set until failure. With your push-ups, do 20 as fast as you can while still maintaining good form. Rest for 30-45 seconds and repeat until failure. Trust me it won't take long to reach failure.
You may not have bleachers where you are, but you'd be surprised what you may find that is just right for some body-weight exercises. You could go a step further and keep a pull-up bar in your car. They have them with a twist extension so that you can fit it easily in a doorway with only a few turns, do your thing and then take it down before security sees you. But the point is try and get past those excuses, even if they are truly legitimate.
So that is my little blurb of advice. This will work in Hotel rooms and the office. Start out with some hip mobility stretches and perhaps some body-weight squats, or add that to your routine if you are in a hotel with no gym (which I seem to always stay at!)
Happy Thanksgiving!
Scott - Healthy Strong.blogspot.com
For more information on this and other subjects, visit one of the greatest resources on the inter-webs: Stronglifts
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